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With the recent move up to the San Francisco Bay Area, I am amazed at all that has happened in the last year. I quit working for the 3D Marketing start-up, returned to DMDC, had two of my friends die in unrelated accidents in a two month period, proposed to Natalie, quit DMDC, found a new job in Pleasanton, and moved to Oakland.

It seems that a lot of changes in a small time-frame can cause me to forget important events that occurred not so long ago. A couple of them - the death of Fateh Kausar and Jason Liao - keeps coming to my mind regularly.

Fateh was a brilliant, daring and compassionate friend. He would do anything for a thrill (hiking out on the edge of the waterfall at Yosemite...). And he would do anything for a friend. But some times the two would collide and produce unfortunate events. On one occasion, we were at work and decided to go out for coffee. Fateh drove his car up to the entrance of the building and everybody began to get into the car. He heard one of the rear doors slam shut, so he thought that everyone was inside. I was in the process of getting in and still had my door open. He started to accelerate with me only partially in the car! Everyone else started to yell at him to stop, which he did within a few seconds. No harm came of it, but his interest in thrilling himself and his passengers conflicted with his concern for the well-being of others. I think he spent 5-10 minutes apologizing to me, while I assured him that it wasn't a problem. Natalie and I were on vacation in Kauai when we heard that he had lost control of his car while driving back to work on Friday after attending Muslim prayer. I will always miss Fateh's sense of humor and adventure.

Also, Jason Liao has been entering my mind a lot. I can't believe that, tomorrow, it will have been a year since his passing. Jason and I had met a couple of times since he returned to the Monterey Bay area to work for CTB McGraw Hill. That night, I met him and a group of his coworkers at a restaurant called "Hula's" for dinner and drinks. Everyone was having quite a lot of drinks, and I assumed that Jason would be taken care of, both through his own good judgement and the concern of his coworkers. I left them at around 9:30 that night and headed home. I was disturbed to find out that Jason had died in a solo car accident later that night while driving in his Corvette in Marina. That event will always be with me.

I came upon an excerpt of the obituary posted in the Monterey Herald:

"Liao, Jason H., 25, passed away as a result of a car accident on December 11. Born on February 17, 1979 in Monterey, he attended North Monterey County High School and graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2000. He was a CAD engineer with PMC Sierra in Santa Clara. He recently moved back to the Monterey area and began his work for CTB McGraw Hill in custom contract. Jason will be remembered as a thoughtful, joyful, loving person and with a sence of humor. He will be missed by his mother Bih, father Shu, brother Kenneth of San Jose, grandmother Su-Fong Wu of Fremont and many loving relatives. Funeral services will be held at The Paul Mortuary, 390 Lighthouse Avenue, Pacific Grove, at 4:00 p.m. Saturday, December 18."

So, I think that this time of year will always be a time for remembrance for me. I think that's a good thing.